The Future Avoided
by Amy Cahill09
Summary: The future could have gone two ways. Humanity could have survived or nearly become extinct. I watched humanity be wiped off of the face of Fiore by 10,000 dragons. Now I am here to stop that future from happening. After all, I can not watch you all die a second time. One time was already too much. I can not lose you again. Please, protect the future. Future Lucy's POV. Slight NaLu.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys! I know I have two other full length stories going on right now, but I just had to do this one. This story is completely planned out and should only take about 10 chapters. I am sure you will all love it, so please stick around for it! Enjoy!**

Chapter 1 - Humanity Strike Back

No matter how much I tried to ignore the past, it always came back to haunt me. It was everywhere and always unavoidable. It had gone to a point that even the most mundane objects would trigger memories to resurface. The constant reminders of the horrid fate to befall the world of Fiore jabbed yet another knife to the collection already stuck inside my wounded heart - figuratively, of course. However, the pain felt as real as any other wound would ever feel. Of course, the aching pain in my chest would multiply whenever the memories of my old friends would resurface. Their laughter would bubble in my ears and the smiles their faces once held would come to mind. Soon enough, that would change. It changed like it always did - the laughter turned to screams and the smiles turned to tears. In other words, my memories became a waking nightmare that was impossible to escape. The memories were unavoidable, so I just had to ignore them to the best of my abilities.

The year is X798, which is seven years after the Grand Magic Games. I am one of the 10% of human survivors left in Fiore after the horrid fate to befall us all seven years ago. On the seventh day of the Grand Magic Games held in X791, the Eclipse Gate was opened. During that time, I was still locked away inside a cell deep within the capitol's castle. Since I was not outside to see the events of what happened outside, I have no idea how the Eclipse Plan had failed. Perhaps there was not enough magical energy to blast away all 10,000 dragons or maybe the gate had just failed entirely, I am unsure. However, I remember the horror that filled me when the castle had started to crumble.

Everything was happening so fast that I had no time to think. All I could do in such a horrid situation was act. I truly do not remember much about my escape from the cell, but I remember the pure adrenalin that rushed through my veins as I avoided falling rubble and flaming debris. That adrenalin rush was soon over when I stepped outside to see what had happened. My blood ran cold as I saw dead citizens and mages alike strewn across the ruined streets and broken buildings like trash. The people were not even completely pieced together. Some were missing limbs and others were completely naked or gutted. It had been a slaughter house, no one had been spared from death. I ran through town, trying to find any survivors. My friends just had to be alive. Fairy Tail mages could not lose!

I was horribly wrong.

I had found my team members in such a horrible position that I felt sick to my stomach. The deaths of the townsfolk had been bad, but this was just cruel. Erza had been stripped of her armor, which had ultimately allowed whatever beast she had been fighting to rip her apart and eat her insides. Once the creature had gotten what it wanted, it had left her in pieces that were scattered around the town square.

Gray's demise had not been much better. He had holes ripped through him of all different sizes. They were clean shots which must have been made by lasers of some kind. There were several throughout his torso and upper body, but it was obvious that the killing blow had been a shot to the head. His blood and brains had splattered the pavement and walls around him, creating a horrid sight that even the strongest of men would become queasy around.

Happy had not been spared either. It seemed as if the blue fur ball that was always energetic and full of life could not escape a horrid demise either. His white wings had been ripped from his back and tossed next to his body. Two gaping holes on his back took the place of where his white wings truly belonged. His Fairy Tail guild mark had been slashed through by a set of claws. Along with that, his bag had been scavenged through.

It was then that my eyes landed on a spot of pink. I could feel the blood drain from my face as I ran towards the color. Deep down inside, I begged for it to not be Natsu. Of course, fate would never do me a favor of any kind. I fell to my knees and grabbed hold of the hand that had brought me to Fairy Tail years ago. I tried to hold back my sobs but before I knew it, my tears started to fall. Natsu had a talon stuck completely through his stomach. Although the dragon who had done this may have lost a single talon off one of its claws, it had ultimately pinned Natsu down to the concrete square. Along with this, Natsu's once white scarf was now soaked red with his own blood.

It was in that moment that I had cried out to the Heaven's above in complete anguish. Not only had my comrades been taken from me, but so had the love of my life. For a moment, my cries rang with the roars of the dragons that had attacked the town. The two sounds seemed to morph together, making it seem as if it was a cry of a dragon who had lost its mate. However, I was no dragon and soon enough the dragons would find me and bring about my demise too.

With no time to lose, I had ran off from the square. Although it pained me to do such a thing, I knew that I had more important things to do if I wished to survive. With the bodies of my friends behind me, I had gone back to the castle ruins in hopes of finding my celestial keys. After what felt like hours of digging, my torn and bloodied hands hand savaged my keys. With hope bubbling up inside me, I ran to escape the once beautiful city. On my way out, I had avoided looking at the bodies the littered the streets. I looked ahead to see the edge of town and felt joy filling inside me.

It was in that moment that I had lost my focus. I had stopped looking around for dragons by then, causing me to be swept up by one. I released a mortified scream as it bit into my right arm. The pain was overwhelming and I knew I would die soon enough if I could not escape. With a well-placed kick, I caused the dragon to release me. At least, that's what I had thought. I plummeted to the ground, landing harshly on the rubble that littered the town. Without looking back, I ran as far away as possible. Weaving between and behind rubble, I soon found a small cave of sorts and hid inside. It was then that the pain hit me and I realized what had truly happened. The dragon had not released me when I had kicked it. Instead, it had bit straight through my right arm. I screamed and cried as hysteria started to set in. Not only had I lost my right arm, but I had also lost my guild mark.

I am unsure of how long it took, but soon enough I had gained enough control to calm myself and think rationally. I started scavenging for supplies when I had deemed it safe to do so. It had taken a while, but soon enough I was able to clean, sew, and wrap the wound. Along the way, I had also stolen a cloak off of a dead man's body and found an empty journal and pen. That was the best I could do at the time. Of course, now things are different.

Fiore is now nothing more than a wasteland that is overrun by dragons. Once prosperous cities are now piles of rubble that have commonly become nests for dragons. Searching for supplies is difficult and dangerous no matter the time of day. The worst thing is that even though there are other humans in Fiore, they are hard to come by and are now horribly untrustworthy.

I plan to change all that though. Tonight is the night that I put my plan into action. Ever since the horrible attack, I have worked on a plan to change this horrible future. Tonight, I will open the Eclipse Gates once more and travel into the past to save the future. It has been seven years since the original attack. The gates should have once again gained enough power to activate. After all, it had taken seven years for them to be ready the first time they were opened. This plan was not foolproof - it was not even close to that at all - but it was the only option this world had, and I was ready to do everything in my power to save this world. Tonight would be the night where everything would be put into motion.

Tonight is the night that humanity strikes back.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two - Loving and Losing

As night fell upon the land of Fiore, I physically and mentally prepared myself for the challenge ahead. Making sure that my celestial keys were securely at my side, I tried my best to calm my rapidly beating heart. The fear of failure was getting to me and I knew that any sign of fear or weakness could put the mission in jeopardy if I was caught. After all, I remember people always saying that dragons could smell fear and there was no way I would take such a risk. Closing my eyes, I quickly ran through the plan in my head once more.

It would be a rather simple plan. It would start with me infiltrating the town without being spotted by the dragons. Once inside, I'd find the ruins of the castle and enter them. From there, it would be a simple case of traversing the ruins until I found the Eclipse Gates. Once found, I'd use my celestial keys to open the gates and escape to the past. After that, well, I really had no idea. I was sure it would be simple though. I mean, someone from the guild would believe me.

I froze at the thought as horrid memories started to plague my mind again. Quickly snapping my eyes open, I shooed the thoughts from my mind. Now was not the time to reminisce about memories from the past. What was important was the mission at hand and the fact that the success of this mission relied on my shoulders alone. There would be no nakama to help me carry this burden. Instead, I would be going through all of this alone.

Securing the cloak around my body, I stepped into the moonlit night with determination flowing through my veins. Never looking back, my feet firmly brought me forward and guided me to my destination. Traversing the wasteland, I did my best to watch out for possible thiefs and even the chance of a rouge dragon hunting the grounds. There had been several times that I had ended up diving for cover due to a dragon flying overhead, but all in all the trip had been fairly easy.

Soon enough, I was on the outskirts of town. Cautiously, I stepped foot into the forsaken city that had once been so grand. As I made my way towards where I remembered the ruins of the castle being, I kept watch of the area around me. Slowly, instincts started to take control of my feet as my mind was set solely on keeping watch for dragons. After all, I had unfortunately learned the disaster of what could happen if you became distracted.

When I was getting close to the ruins, the buildings around me rumbled as a loud roar sounded from behind me. Not wanting to take the risk of looking behind me and confirming the existence of a dragon, I took off into a mad dash. My fears were soon confirmed as I heard the stomping of a dragon chasing after me. Each step the behemoth took caused the ground to shake with an unimaginable force. If not for my good balance, I would have easily fallen over and been the next meal for the beast chasing me.

Glancing behind me, I took in the features of the dragon trying to end my life. The dragon was an extremely large, mastodonic dragon, whose near-entire body was covered with large, thick, swirl-patterned scales. However its underbelly was instead lined with porous holes. Its face, which has smaller, more smooth scales positioned around round, blank eyes. Meanwhile, its snout was completely devoid of scales altogether. Around its mouth and climbing up its snout as well as being featured on various other parts of its body, the dragon had light, jagged markings. Additionally, the terrifying dragon's cavernous mouth is filled with razor sharp teeth. Of course, the dragon sported extremely large wings with were quite proportionate to its already large body mass. The dragon's long tail was adorned with the same scales as the rest of its body. Strangely, the tip of the tail was rather peculiar in shape, as it had two large scales protruding from either side The dragon's two back claws sport five talons each: four in the front, and one in the back. The front claws were positioned the same, however the left front claw was missing a talon.

My eyes widened as I realized the horrifying fact behind the dragon chasing me. This had been the dragon to kill Natsu. There were several clues hinting to it. For one, the talons on the claws of this dragon matched the one that had impaled Natsu to the stone floor of the town square. The other clue was the fact that this dragon was missing a talon on one of its front claws. The weight of that info nearly caused me to momentarily go into shock, but instead I turned to face the road ahead of me again. As I narrowly dodged being hit by the beast's tail, I could see the ruined castle on the horizon. As I took bounding leaps over large pieces of buildings, I did my best to dodge the attacks of the dragon as well. Hearing the beast preparing for an attack, I narrowly dove and slid into the ruins, causing my good arm to get scratched up rather badly. However, I had made it right before the dragon had unleashed it's horrid attack. Where I had been moments ago was now a humongous crater due to the dragon's roar that had almost looked like a laser.

Deciding it would be best not to stay so close to the outer edges of the ruins, I quickly made my way deeper into the ruins. Soon enough, I allowed myself to relax. The humongous beast would be unable to fit inside such small ruins. As I explored the ruined castle, mementos of a old, better way of life scattered the halls. Paintings of people dancing happily at balls and others of royal family members were ripped and molding as they lay forgotten on the floor. Scrolls once filled with stories of adventure and romance were now nothing more than dust. It was a sad sight, but I continued on. After what felt like hours of walking, a glint of something in the corner of my eye caught my attention. Walking towards it, a small smile soon made itself onto my face as I laid eyes on what could only be the Eclipse Gates.

The Gate had a large door with an elaborate design. At the center of the door is a sun with a darkened moon below it. The lower section of the door from the sun past the moon is dark blue with golden lines, the upper section is green and split into twelve segments. Around the sun are several circles, the innermost one connecting the moon and twelve holes, one in each segment. A set of steps leads up to the door and two pillars stand on either side of the door with an arch connecting them. Atop the arch was an emblem consisting of an eclipsed sun. On either side of the Gate was an additional support, fashioned in the shape of a leg. From a conversation that I had had with some important soldier years ago whose name I could not remember, I could faintly recall that it was made from a super strong, magic-resistant metal known as Maginium.

Walking closer, I nearly jumped in shock as I kicked something. A metallic clang echoed as the objects I had hit jostled forward a bit. Bending down to see what I had hit, nausea filled my stomach as I realized what was before me. What I had kicked was none other than Yukino's celestial keys. Picking them up in my hands, I realized that the light blue haired female must have died if her keys had been abandoned here. After all, the girl would never leave her keys behind purposely. Glancing at the Eclipse Gates, I sighed. In a way, it was a good thing the the keys had been left here. It was obvious that all the golden zodiac keys were needed just to open the gate. After all, there was a hole for each key. However, besides just Libra and Pisces, there was a third key. If I remember correctly, Yukino's had called it Ophiuchus.

Standing back up with Yukino's celestial keys in hand, I walked until I was face to face with the gate. Placing the golden keys in their places, everything was silent until the last key went in place along with a click. Suddenly, all the keys turned and the Eclipse Gate opened. As I stepped forward to remove the zodiac keys, everything changed in an instant. All the keys suddenly snapped and disappeared into a golden glitter that quickly retreated to the Heavens above. Along with that, it wasn't long after that I realized my silver keys had somehow suffered the same fate. The only key that had not been taken back to the Heavens before my eyes was the key which belonged to Ophiuchus.

The shock of the horrifying event shook me to my core as I fell to my knees before the Gate. Clutching Ophiuchus' key tightly in my left hand, I brought said hand to my face as I sobbed uncontrollably. In the blink of an eye, the last few friends I had remaining had disappeared before my very eyes. The worst part was I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye and there was no way of telling if the were safe or had died completely. There was nothing left for me to do but wallow in self pity. All the memories I had of the times with my celestial spirits flooded my mind. Every single one of them meant the world to me, so how could the Celestial King so easily take them away from me? Did I no longer deserve them? Was this some sort of punishment?

As I continued to sob, a bright light suddenly blinded me. Wiping my tears away, I looked up to see the Eclipse Gates slowly opened. Forcing myself to my feet, I realized that this was not the end. My spirits had sacrificed themselves to open the Gate before me once more. They had given me the chance to change the future to create a brighter one where everyone was alive and all of Fairy Tail was once united. They had activated the Gate for me and there was no way I would let that go to waste.

"You'll come with me, right, Ophiuchus?" I questioned, looking at the key in my hand. A slight glint seemed to come from within the key and I quickly took it as a yes. With a new determination, I stumbled into the golden light and allowed it to engulf me. Without another word, I vanished and left behind an empty ruin in hopes of rewriting history. There was one other thing I left behind though.

The last thing I left behind was the case that had once held the keys of my celestial spirits in hope that it would somehow reach them along with my love for them.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three - The Arrival

My trip through the Eclipse Gates had been less than easy. In fact, the trip had almost made me sick to my stomach. When I had stepped into the bright light, it had instantly sucked me into the gates. It had felt as if I had just been thrown into on of Aquarius' whirlpools, and the feeling was definitely unpleasant. Not to mention, it had brought back the upsetting memories of my recently lost friends. No matter how hard I tried to direct my mind to the task at hand, the memory of the loss of my friends always seemed to flash back into my mind, bringing a stab of pain meant for my heart with it.

Behind me, I could hear the doors shut with a loud bang that seemed to echo through the space around me. Surprisingly, the floor beneath my feet was solid, although there seemed to be nothing under my feet. Once I realized this, I glanced around to take in my surroundings. All at once, I started to recognize the stars and constellations around me. This place seemed to show the starry galaxy within it, which made for lovely scenery. It was almost as if I was floating through space. After all, there was nothing around my but empty space and stars. The floor wasn't even visible to my eyes! It was truly such a stunning sight that was painted into my mind.

Before me was a bright white light that seemed to glow and give off a strange warmth just like the door that had let me into this wonderful world, but the starry sky around me continued to be a beautiful distraction. After realizing that I was still on a self-made mission, I instantly faced forward and picked up my pace. I could not allow myself to be distracted; not even the beauty of the stars was allowed to stop me from saving my friends. The stars and constellations started to pass me by, but soon enough I started to see the same constellations that I had passed before. Biting my lip, I raised an eyebrow. Had I perhaps walked in a circle? That seemed impossible though. There was only a straight path to walk. However, no matter how long I walked, the distance never seemed to shorten and the same constellations continued to come back into my sight.

Soon enough, I was sprinting down what seemed to be a never ending corridor of stars. My feet made loud thuds against the invisible floor as I ran, the sound echoing and making it seem as if I was truly trapped alone in the empty void of space. The strain that I was placing on my feet due to my excessive running was starting to cause me pain, but I refused to allow myself to relax even a tad. Horrid thoughts started plaguing my mind as I continued to run, causing me to tear up. What if I was trapped here forever? What if I died here? What if the sacrifices all my friends made were for nothing? What if the Eclipse Gates weren't ready when I used them? Maybe changing the past was impossible.

A sudden warmth at my hip snapped me away from my thoughts. Moving my hand under my cloak and to my hip, I grasped onto Ophiuchus' key and brought it before me. Seeing the warm light that I had grown used to my celestial keys making whenever my friends wished to help, a slight smile graced my face. The cool feeling of the gold key along with the warm light slowly helped my calm my mind. Using the back of my hand to wipe away my unshed tears, took a deep breath and let it go before speaking.

"Thanks Ophiuchus," I whispered, assuming the spirit could hear me, "I really needed a reminder that I wasn't alone."

The key's light grew brighter until it was almost painful, causing me to close my eyes. When the bright light dissipated, I opened them up and nearly gasped. Suddenly, I stood before the place where the end of the world had began - the Grand Magic Games arena that went by the name Domus Flau. What shocked me was not the arena itself, but the state that it was in. The arena was standing tall and strong as if it had never faced the destruction the dragons had caused it.

Everything about the Domus Flau was the same. The appearance of a large, round, open battle arena that looked similar to the fictional Roman Coliseum, along with its open top. It still had it's numerous arches in its walls and a large entrance instead of piles of rubble. The Domus Flau also had four gigantic statues still standing, each holding a staff with a big circle on top, which looked like Roman warriors that faced inwards, surrounding the Domus Flau. Four gigantic chains could also be seen around the Domus Flau; each starting from a circular metal hook in the ground around the Domus Flau, connecting to circles behind the statues, and reaching down The sight of the arena gave me the realization that I had made it through time. I was in the past. The dragons had yet to arrive and I had been given my second chance to save everyone.

Overjoyed, I instantly kissed Ophiuchus' key and spoke, "I have a feeling you have something to do with my success. Thank you for everything."

Looking up into the sky, I was greeted with the sight of the full moon and twinkling stars. The cool night air caresses my face, cooling me down considerably under my warm cloak. With a sense of determination flowing through my body, I turned on my heel and started walking away from the arena. As my cloak billowed behind me, only one thought ran through my mind - I have no time to waste.

**(Author's Note: Sorry this chapter is a bit short. Recently, school and work has caused a big problem so chapters for all of my stories will be coming out farther apart. Also, I know that the Romans are real, but I've always felt as if our reality would be a fairy tale in Fiore, so yeah. That's why they're mentioned as fictional in the chapter. That is all.)**


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